Displaying items by tag: France

France: The Carlyle Group has started talks with HGH Infrared Systems to acquire a majority stake in the specialist provider of infrared technology products. The proposed acquisition will be subject to customary employee consultations and regulatory approvals. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. No value for the deal has been disclosed.

“This potential partnership with Carlyle is excellent news for our customers. It will also help HGH to move to the next level and to build on our strong international growth trajectory,” said Thierry Campos, chief executive officer of HGH Infrared Systems. He added that Carlyle’s international reach and its experience in aerospace and defence, oil and gas and energy markets would further help to develop the company.

HGH was founded in 1982. It develops and sells optoelectronic and infrared systems and software for surveillance applications, test and measurement and industrial thermography in different end-markets. The company operates two research and development and assembly sites in the Optics Valley near Paris, France and in California, US. The company provides solutions to clients across 40 countries through two recognised brands HGH Infrared Systems and Electro Optical Industries (EOI).

France: Sherpa and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) have argued that Lafarge should be indicted for complicity in crimes against humanity. The non-government organisations (NGO) have made the argument for the accusation in a memorandum to investigative judges examining Lafarge Syria’s conduct. Despite the indictment of several Lafarge executives the NGOs want to the charges to apply to Lafarge itself as a company. The cement producer allegedly paid extremist groups to keep a cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in the country.

“Companies have the means to fuel armed conflicts by doing business with regimes or armed groups who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. The fight against multinationals’ impunity will necessarily imply holding them to account, in particular in countries where parent companies operate and control their subsidiaries’ activities worldwide. Access to justice for thousands of victims of armed conflicts depends on it,” said Sandra Cossart, director of Sherpa.

France: Jacob Waerness, the former security chief at Lafarge Syria, has been arrested in Paris. He was taken into custody in early May 2018 while transferring between planes at the Charles de Gaulle airport, according to Le Monde newspaper. He was arrested on charges of financing terrorism. Waerness worked as the head of security for Lafarge in Syria from 2011 to 2013. He published a book about his experiences in 2016.

Brazil: Mineração Belocal, a subsidiary of Belgium’s Lhoist, has purchased L-Imerys, a lime producer that operates a plant at Doresópolis in Minas Gerais. L-Imerys is a subsidiary of France’s Imerys, according to the Diário do Comércio newspaper. The 0.4Mt/yr lime plant was inaugurated in 2013. The sales is depending on approval by the relevant competition bodies. No value for the acquisition has been disclosed.

France: Vicat’s sales in Turkey, the US and Kazakhstan have driven its growth in the first quarter of 2018. Its sales revenue for its cement business rose by 10.9% year-on-year at constant scope and exchange rates to Euro290m in the first quarter of 2018. Its cement sales volumes rose by 6.5% to 5.2Mt from 4.9Mt.

“We posted significant business growth in Turkey, the US and Kazakhstan, excluding currency effects. The gradual recovery continued in France and India was boosted by the start-up of new infrastructure projects. Conversely, we recorded a business contraction in Switzerland during the first quarter as a result of adverse weather conditions, especially in March 2018, and the completion of a number of major projects. The group’s business trends in Egypt were hampered by the military operations underway to restore security in its production area,” said group chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Guy Sidos.

France: ArcelorMittal plans to increase its stake in Ecocem France to 49% from 30% by the end of May 2018. The transaction is subject to the approval of the Irish Competition Authority. The French subsidiary of Ireland’s Ecocem was set up in 2007 by ArcelorMittal and Ecocem Materials.

Ecocem produces slag cement from ground granulated blast furnace slag. Ecocem France operates a 0.7Mt/yr grinding plant at Fos-sur-Mer near to an ArcelorMittal plant. It plans to open a second 0.7Mt/yr grinding plant at Dunkirk in May 2018. The new plant is intended to target western and northern France as well as export markets in the UK and Belgium.

France: The French government reportedly asked the US not to target Lafarge Syria’s Jalabiya cement plant during military operations in 2014. Emails seen and reported upon by Reuters suggest that France's Syria envoy, Franck Gellet, asked the French Foreign Ministry to protect the cement plant while it was in Islamic State controlled territory. The request to ‘not to do anything about this site without checking with us first’ was then passed to US officials. Neither the French Foreign Ministry nor LafargeHolcim commented on the emails when asked by Reuters.

LafargeHolcim is being investigated in France over claims that Lafarge Syria had paid extremist groups to keep a cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria. Six former Lafarge executives have been charged so far with financing a terrorist organisation.

France: Sonia Artinian, Lafarge’s human resources director from 2013 to 2015, has been charged ‘endangering the lives of others’ during operations in Syria. However, she avoided being charged for financing a terrorist organisation instead being granted ‘assisted witness’ status, according to the Agence France Presse. LafargeHolcim is being investigated in France over claims that Lafarge Syria had paid extremist groups to keep its Jalabiya cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria. Six former Lafarge executives have been charged so far with financing a terrorist organisation.

France/Switzerland: A technology roadmap by the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) sets out a combination of technology and policy solutions that could reduce CO2 emission from the cement industry by 24% by 2050. The Low-Carbon Transition in the Cement Industry report updates the first global sectoral roadmap produced in 2009. It aims to identify and develop international collaborative efforts and provide evidence for public and private sector decision-makers to move towards a more sustainable cement sector that can contribute to long-term climate goals.

“The first exercise carried out in 2009 had demonstrated its added value to help the sector identify solutions and enablers to reduce its CO2 emissions and it was essential to adjust this projection with the latest robust emissions data from the CSI’s Getting The Numbers right (GNR) database and the potential of latest technologies developed by the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA),” said Philippe Fonta, managing director, CSI of World Business Council for Sustainable

Development (WBCSD).The report aims to present a way to help the cement industry play its part it meeting the IEA’s 2°C Scenario (2DS) by 2050, which seeks to limit average global temperature increases to 2°C. The report forecasts that global cement production is set to increase between 12 - 23% by 2050 due to rising global population and urbanisation. Despite increasing efficiencies, direct carbon emissions from the cement industry are expected to rise by 4% globally by 2050 under the IEA Reference Technology Scenario (RTS), a base case scenario that takes into account existing energy and climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. The CSI and IEA argue that the low-carbon transition of the cement industry can only be reached with a supportive regulatory framework as well as effective and sustained investments. They say that meeting the RSI requires more investment, with a

potential doubling to meeting the 2DS. Governments, in collaboration with industry, can play a determinant role in developing policy and regulatory mechanisms that unlock the private finance necessary for such a boost in investment.The roadmap uses a bottom-up approach to explore a possible transition pathway based on least-cost technology analysis for the cement industry to reduce its direct CO2 emissions in line with the IEA’s 2DS. Reaching this goal, the CSI and IEA say, would require a combination of technology solutions, supportive policy, public-private collaboration, financing mechanisms and social acceptance.

Improving energy efficiency and switching to alternative fuels, in combination with reducing the clinker content in cement and deploying emerging and innovative technologies like carbon capture and the use of alternative binding materials are the main carbon-mitigation methods available in cement manufacturing. Further emissions savings can be achieved by taking into account the overall life cycle of cement, concrete and the built environment. The roadmap outlines policy priorities and regulatory recommendations, discusses investment stimulating mechanisms and describes technical challenges with regard to research, development and demonstration.

France: Cem'In'Eu is preparing to open a 0.24Mt/yr cement grinding plant at Montreuil-Bellay in Maine-et-Loire in 2021. The aspiring cement producer submitted planning and environmental permit applications in March 2018, according to the Le Moniteur des travaux publics et du bâtiment magazine. The company hopes to obtain authorisation for the project in the first half of 2019 and start construction work in 2020. Cement from the plant will be marketed under the ‘Val de Loire Ciments’ brand and targeted to central and western France.